Unfortunately there’s a price veterans pay when seeing a doctor or being treated at a hospital outside of the VA network—any prescriptions come with a wait time of at least 2-4 weeks while the VA evaluates the doctors’ notes to determine if they will provide the medication.
For this reason, it’s important to ask for all civilian doctors’ notes from the evaluation along with reasoning for treating with this medication. If you want to avoid wait time—and paying potentially significant fees to foot the bill for the prescription yourself—ask the doctor if there is a generic version of the medication available and if it’s something that can be found at common discount drugstores like Wal-Mart. Some discount or retail pharmacies will fill generic prescriptions for free or at a very low cost.
If you choose to use the pharmacy services provided by the VA network or have no other choice but to do so, bring physical copies of all of your civilian records with you, along with a copy of the prescription. Having this documentation on hand may help with wait times as civilian healthcare facilities often will not communicate electronically with the VA.
Bypassing the doctor and going directly to the pharmacist at your VA facility may also help with this wait time and make for a smoother process.
If you are a veteran with questions about your disability claim, the expert staff of Jan Dils, Attorneys at Law, can help. Call us toll-free at 1.877.526.3457 or send us an e-mail to schedule your free initial consultation today.
